STUDIES IN SAMUEL No. 42

2 Samuel 2:1-32

October 14, 2001

Text Comment

If we had simply the telescoped version of this history that we find in 1 Chron. 11:1-3, we would think that, following the death of Saul, David's transition to the throne of Israel was smooth and uneventful. [Gordon, 207] As it happened, however, it was nothing but smooth and uneventful. There was significant opposition to David remaining after the death of Saul, centered, naturally enough, around the one son of Saul who survived the battle in which Saul was killed along with his three eldest sons and, with him, some of the powerful men of Saul's court who were jealous to preserve their power and standing, Abner chief among them. Ish-Bosheth, Saul's remaining son, was a weak man, a puppet king, a front for the politically ambitious and much more powerful Abner. He set Ish-Bosheth up as king in the Trans-Jordan and the areas north of Judah and hoped to reacquire control over Israel. David, of course, stood in the way of these plans. Not only does he have the loyalty of Judah, the southernmost tribe, and an experienced fighting force at his disposal, but Moab, to Ish-Bosheth's south, was favorably disposed to David, and Geshur, to the north was in alliance with David, he having married the king of Geshur's daughter, as you can read in 3:3. So, with the Philistines on the west, Ish-Bosheth is hemmed in. The number of times something like this has happened in human history is too great to count!

In this case, of course, we have a narrative that is all about the tension between the natural view of kingship and rule - who can outmuscle or outwit the other - represented by Abner, and the charismatic view of kingship - who has the gifts and the callings of God - represented by David.

In this section of 2 Samuel, which takes us to the end of chapter 4, we have three sections or scenes, each of which narrates the violent death of a prominent figure. The first, which we take tonight, ends with the death of Asahel, David's nephew, the son of his sister. The next ends with the violent death of Abner and the last ends with the assassination of Ish-Bosheth.

What is important to notice is that in all of this history David is passive. Others do the fighting, the plotting, the killing. In the next section of the book, when David has become king of Israel, he will show himself a great warrior, defeating Israel's enemies and extending her borders. But in the civil war that preceded his reign in Israel he was not the principle player. Others promoted him; he did not promote himself. And, there is a lesson in that. The safe way to advance in the world and the kingdom of God for a Christian is not by promoting oneself! We read a good bit about the importance of that lesson in Proverbs as well!

v.1 The Lord is with David still. And David, a man of faith, is careful to seek the Lord's guidance before he takes his first move toward ascending Israel's throne. Remember, the Philistines were still at least somewhat favorably disposed toward David, thinking of him as their vassal, and, in any case, it was to their advantage to have Israel divided between warring factions.

v.4 David was anointed three times. Once by Samuel, here by the men of Judah, and, finally by all Israel in 5:3.

v.7 Jabesh Gilead was in the Transjordan, Ish-Bosheth's territory, and was, of course, a town particularly loyal to Saul who had rescued it years before. So David was shrewd to begin cultivating their good will.

v.9 It is clear that Abner is calling the shots, not Ish-Bosheth. Abner was to Ish-Bosheth what Cardinal Richelieu was to Louis XIII in the 17th century.

v.8 Ish-Bosheth is in Mahanaim, across the Jordan, because he was safe there from the Philistine threat. Remember, the Philistines were still the major force in the region and had just dealt Israel a crushing defeat at Gilboa. The location indicates that Ish-Bosheth's government was itself a government in exile.

v.11 It may be that we are to understand the last five and a half years to be the time when David ruled over Israel from Hebron. We do not know precisely how long the civil war lasted.

v.l3 You can still see this large pool today at Gibeon. Gibeon was about five miles north of Jerusalem. But it probably was territory that neither side controlled at this point.

v.14 This is another instance of representative combat. There is evidence from archaeology that this form of combat was not uncommon in the ANE.

v.15 Remember, Saul was from Benjamin, so it is natural that fighters for Ish-Bosheth would be drawn from that tribe.

v.17 The impression is that the 24 soldiers were killed or wounded so the entire force on each side went into action. Now, following the summary statement in v. 17, which gives us the outcome at the end of the day, the story of how the battle unfolded and the pursuit of Abner is told in some detail because it sets the stage for and provides the rationale for Abner's murder which is related in chapter 3.

v.18 Joab was to be for years the commander of David's army. Abishai and Asahel were also redoubtable warriors as is indicated by the fact that they are listed among "The Thirty" - a group of exceptional military men - in 2 Sam. 23:18, 24. Asahel's reputation, obviously, was built on his exploits before this as one of David's fighters during the wilderness years.

v.20 Abner was obviously personally acquainted with Asahel as he was with Joab as we will read in v. 22. Being a seasoned warrior, he didn't regard the young man as "fair game." [Gordon, 215] Asahel, like his brothers, as will be demonstrated in time, wants pride of place. He overestimates his own powers and underestimates the powers of his opponent and suffers the consequences. Pride went before his fall. In any case, like every other civil war, this conflict produced heartbreak on all sides and bitterness between those who otherwise should have been at peace with one another.

v.22 The mention of Joab is ominous foreshadowing. Abner is a wise man in his way. He knows what killing Asahel will mean and he doesn't want a blood feud with Joab. Abner is smart and powerful, but he is godless, selfish, and ambitious without regard to the will of God. The world is full of men like this. Powerful, even admirable in some ways, but worshippers of themselves and not of God. And the Bible shows us such men and invites us to compare them and their end with true men of God. Abner will sound religious at times, he even confesses that he knows that David is the Lord's anointed, but he makes choices based calculations of self-interest. He's a man who will be found in church, but his ethics are not based on a true and living faith in God.

v.23 The way Abner killed Asahel is a measure of the brute strength of the man. And to see Asahel lying there having been killed in that way was demoralizing to the rest of the men of Judah.

v.24 Abishai and Joab are out for revenge. They do not get it this day, but will later.

v.26 Abner's argument is that a legitimate military action is turning into a vendetta that can only end badly. Of course, Abner is unwittingly predicting the future. In any case, his appeal has the desired effect.

v.27 No doubt, in large part, Joab's willingness to break off the engagement, was due to the fact that Abner's men had regrouped on the hill and were poised to inflict more casualties on his men. [Alter, Com., 207]

v.31 The battle as a whole went badly for Abner's side, the shape of things to come.

Now, we consider this chapter at a most opportune moment. The world is, as I speak, enthralled with a great struggle going on between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and terrorist forces in the Middle East on the other. We are being treated to television reports of distant battles, of the speeches of leaders on both sides, and we wonder how it will all turn out. We also wonder, quite naturally, what effect all of this will have on the world economy, on our jobs locally, on our prosperity. But, what is almost too obvious for anyone to think to mention is that this battle is being waged primarily by unbelievers, there is no sense that the Christian church has some direct involvement or leadership in this struggle, none of the world leaders exercises his role as someone who explicitly represents the Christian church and her cause in the world. As is so often the case, the great events of world history, the events that dominate the world stage, seem unrelated to what Christians claim is the real story and the real purpose of world history, viz. the story of Christ's salvation.

We may read in the Apostle Paul that Jesus Christ is head over all things for the church, but the fact is, an unbeliever looking at the world scene, might easily forget there is such a thing as a Christian church or, at least, think it largely irrelevant. It certainly is not obvious that the church of Jesus Christ is the center of everything and the pivot around which world history turns. No television commentators are spending hours on the air discussing what all of this - the terrorist strikes on September 11 and the battle now in Afghanistan - portends for the kingdom of Christ. That question is on very few people's minds. There is nothing about what is going on that seems to suggest the importance of Christ's kingdom. All the movers and shakers care about other things entirely.

And so it seems wherever we look. All of the concern recently about the Stock Market has been reported, discussed, and felt in the heart of the nation without regard to the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. The big news in the Pacific Northwest these days is the fortunes Boeing and of the Seattle Mariners, and, once again, though it preoccupies many minds, it has nothing obvious to do with the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And so it has always seemed. The world goes on thinking about and caring about many things and utterly ignoring the cause of the gospel in the world. Its great men who lead and who undertake exploits expend their energies on everything but the church of the Lord Jesus. What really seems to count in this world is everything else. The church seems to be a minor matter, not nearly so important as the great things going on. Her men, her leaders, often seem quite small compared to the great men of the world.

Even when Jesus Christ himself was in the world, who cared about what was happening in a small backwater of the Roman empire. So insignificant was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ from a Roman point of view, that Tacitus, the famous 1st century Roman historian, in his review of the troubles in Judea, says that "under Tiberius all was quiet" or, as one scholar translates him, "under Tiberius nothing much happened." [Histories, V, ix]. The Savior of the world died and rose again and Tacitus says, "nothing much happened."

Well, so here. Great warriors have their day in the sun. Great battles, feats of daring are performed. Great tragedies overshadow families and peoples. But who are we reading about here? Joab, Asahel, and Abner. Men's men. Fleet of foot, strong of limb. Men who excel in the heat of battle. The men that the world admires and cares to notice. To be quite candid, these were not particularly good men. They were certainly not faithful men. We will find out more about Joab later and nothing we learn commends him as a man who trusted God. And, of course, Abner also. And David through all of this time? He is behind the scenes. Others are out in front. He does nothing particularly heroic or noteworthy while the civil war rages in Israel. Or does he? He obeys the Lord and waits upon the Lord. The world cares nothing for that. There is little that grabs our attention in that. But how like the advancement of the kingdom of God. Our Savior said it would be this way: that the kingdom of God would go the way of the seed. That it would grow slowly and imperceptibly in many ways. And it has. Through the ages that is how it has grown. And many great events have swirled around it and many great men and have come and gone and captured the attention of the world. But, all the while, the kingdom was advancing according to God's will and plan.

The result of all this struggle between powerful men, all of this grabbing for power and all of this killing and revenge, was, at last, that David would be king of Israel and then that Jesus, his descendant, would be revealed as the King of Kings. But only rarely does the real meaning of things break to the surface. We are mesmerized by what seems to be the more important history going on around us and do not see the true story of the world unfolding in, under, around and through all of these other events.

Here too we must live by faith. By sight there are many things that seem more important than the Christian church and the proclamation of the gospel and the salvation of a soul. Terrorist strikes, economic downturns, even baseball games. And there are many people who seem much more consequential than almost any Christian we can think of. But faith knows, because we have been taught it in the Word of God, that what really matters in this world is the salvation of human beings, one by one, and the fortunes of Christ's church, up and down, and all that the Lord is doing in the world by which he tests his people and proves their faith, by which he opens the way of the gospel to some people and closes the way of the gospel to others. And faith knows that the truly great of this world are not those who occupy the world stage and who perform exploits that take the world breath away. The truly great are those who love and trust the Lord and do his will in the world.

I heard the great preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, only once in my life, when he came, in his retirement, to Aberdeen, Scotland, when Florence and I were living there in the mid-1970s. He preached a sermon under the auspices of a Scottish organization that promoted preaching on the end-times and the second coming of the Lord. It was a powerful sermon as I remember, but I recollect only one statement from it. He was speaking of the prophecies in Daniel concerning the events that would transpire between Daniel's day and the appearance of the Messiah. And he said, "the man the world calls Alexander the Great, the Bible calls a he-goat!" The Bible is not impressed with Alexander except to the extent that his conquests and then the break-up of his kingdom set the stage for developments that would shape the world in the day that the Lord Jesus was to make his appearance.

Think of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Who seemed to be the great man of that day? It was Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, the most powerful empire in the world. What was Jerusalem, the city of God. It was, in comparison to Babylon, a small town. And Judea, its kingdom, had been reduced to little more than Jerusalem and its immediate suburbs. Yet the fortunes of Jerusalem at that moment seem in the Bible to be the greatest matter of all. It wouldn't have seemed so to the Babylonians. They ate little cities and little countries like Jerusalem and Judea for lunch. But what counted for time and eternity was what was happening to Jerusalem, Babylon, unbeknownst to the Babylonians, was nothing but an instrument in God's hand to deal with his people and his church, to punish them and so to purify them. And now Babylon is long gone. No one worships Marduk anymore. But Jerusalem, the city of God, the church of Christ is still with us, far larger than Babylon ever was or dreamed of being, and will be will us until the end of the world.

And who was actually the great man of that day? It was not Nebuchadnezzar the King of Kings, as he called himself. It was Jeremiah, the Lord's prophet, who told the truth and suffered greatly for his loyalty to his God, and then who died in ignominy in Egypt, the victim of events over which he had no control. How different things seem in the world than they seem to God! How different things seem in the world than they really are! What is genuinely and eternally important is almost completely overlooked - as Jesus himself was - and what is of little and only temporary consequence is treated as if it were the sum of all things.

The blindness of men to the truth of God is revealed as well on the front page of the newspaper every day as it is revealed in their stubborn refusal to hear the gospel themselves, to believe in Jesus, and to be saved. But you and I know better and, knowing what we know, it is ours to live according to what is true and not according to the appearance of things that so beguiles the world around us.

So now we come to the Lord's Supper, an activity of no real consequence in the eyes of the world, but that faith knows is a moment when the living God comes down to earth.